Distinct stress‐related medial prefrontal cortex activation in women with depression with and without childhood maltreatment

Abstract

Background Emerging evidence has highlighted the moderating effect of childhood maltreatment (CM) in shaping neurobiological abnormalities in major depressive disorder (MDD). However, whether neural mechanisms underlying stress sensitivity in MDD are affected by the history of CM is unclear. Methods Two hundred and thirteen medication‐free female participants were recruited for a functional magnetic resonance imaging study assessing the effects of psychosocial stress on neural responses. The Montreal Imaging Stress Task was administrated to 44 female MDD patients with CM (MDD/CM), 32 female MDD patients without CM (MDD/noCM), 43 female healthy controls (HCs) with CM (HC/CM), and 94 female HCs without CM (HC/noCM). A CM (CM, noCM) × diagnosis (MDD, HC) whole‐brain voxel‐wise analysis was run to assess putative group differences in neural stress responses. Results A significant CM × Diagnosis interaction emerged in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Bonferroni‐corrected simple effects analysis clarified that (1) the MDD/CM group had less mPFC deactivation than the HC/CM group, (2) the MDD/noCM group exhibited greater mPFC deactivation than the HC/noCM group, and (3) the MDD/CM group exhibited less mPFC deactivation relative to the MDD/noCM group. In addition, the mPFC‐seed psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed that individuals in the CM groups had significantly greater stress‐related mPFC‐left superior frontal gyrus and mPFC‐right posterior cerebellum connectivity relative to the noCM groups. Conclusions Findings highlight distinct neural abnormalities in MDD depending on prior CM history, particularly potentiated stress‐related mPFC recruitment among MDD individuals reporting CM. Moreover, CM history was generally associated with the disruption in functional connectivity centered on the mPFC.

Characteristics of white matter structural connectivity in healthy adults with childhood maltreatment

“…Sensitivity analyses were used to test whether the primary findings (fibre length of the PCR-R, ACR-R, and ATR) would be affected by different types of CM (i.e. sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, physical and emotional neglect) (Dong et al, 2022 ). Besides, previous studies proposed that different dimensions of CM (i.e.…”

“…Threats involve varying degrees of physical and sexual abuse, witnessing domestic violence, and so on, while deprivation involves various forms of neglect (McLaughlin et al, 2019 ). Thus threat dimension included sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, and the deprivation dimension included physical or emotional neglect (Dong et al, 2022 ). The sensitivity analysis results showed that the fibre length of PCR-R and ACR-R was significantly shorter ( p < .05) in the CM group than in the non-CM group in most types of trauma.…”

Resting‐state cerebral blood flow and functional connectivity abnormalities in depressed patients with childhood maltreatment: Potential biomarkers of vulnerability?

“…53 MDD-by-CM interaction has been reported in PFC under stress conditions. 11,54 The FC abnormality in PFC could distinguish MDDCM from MDDNCM. 55 In line with previous literature, the FCs of OFC-dlPFC and OFC-vmPFC were higher in HCCM or MDDNCM, and were positively correlated with CTQ scores and HAMD-c.…”

“…9,10 A recent study has reported a CM Â MDD diagnosis interactive effect on stress-related neural activation located in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). 11 Overlapping effects of MDD and CM on amygdala functional connectivity (FC) in the prefrontal and limbic systems were reported in previous research. 12 The longitudinal CM-related increases in functional connectivity (FC) between default mode network, dorsal attention network, and frontoparietal systems were thought to mediate the relationship between CM experience and depressive symptoms in MDD patients.…”

“…Accumulating evidence from neuroimaging studies suggests that neural substrates of CM are closely related to the frontoparietal and visual cortex (VC) 9,10 . A recent study has reported a CM × MDD diagnosis interactive effect on stress‐related neural activation located in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) 11 . Overlapping effects of MDD and CM on amygdala functional connectivity (FC) in the prefrontal and limbic systems were reported in previous research 12 .…”